I can still feel Rastaban. I can still taste Rastaban. The very mention of
his name brings up bile into my throat.
His hair was long, black, fine, and exquisite to touch. It was always in a ponytail that started just at the base of his neck. I was young, too young, but you know how hindsight is. Rodolphus and Bella had already started an intense, slow burn courtship. It just seemed like the right thing. You know how it starts, for it always starts the same. Innocent girl desperate to fit in, older boy looking for someone to look up to him. They talk. They flirt. He ignores her, she dotes more. All very much on the level, all evenhanded, all typical.
I think I liked him because he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes. At least, I think that was my reason to myself at the time. Even Muggle tobacco was too tainted for him; he found the one wizard grower in the world. At the time, I thought it made him sophisticated rather than pretentious and elitist.
He looked at me one day, taking a long drag from one of those self-same cigarettes. He looked at me, appraised me, gave me that long, hard gaze that is the ultimate test. I don't really know what he saw. I was a rather confused 6th year, torn between family and future, who hadn't quite realized that she had developed quickly and favorably. He finished his painfully slow, yet almost offhand glance and looked me right in the face.
"So I suppose you want to go out?" he said, as one would address an uncooperative child. So much for my first sweet taste of young love. It didn't matter to me then. I still thought he was the be all and end all of the wizarding world.
Dating didn't make things that much different. Furtive groping in the astronomy tower, a constant escort to class, living as a perpetual performance piece for all of Slytherin, a much envied invitation to the Graduation Dance. It was every cliché imaginable, but I though it was something rare and beautiful. I was an exceedingly young, exceedingly stupid girl.
It was late summer, just before I got my letter for seventh year. I was staying at Lestrange Manor. Strange as it sounds, I wanted to be home. It was one of the rare moments that my mother and I actually got along. Outside, the sky was spending itself on the land. We were lying on his bed, in his room all immaculate in dark brocade and mahogany paneling. It was the kind of room that seems almost too good to be in, where every trace of someone living there is carefully removed each day by the house elf.
How can I describe what happened? I don't suppose I really need to. You know this story. A lot more fumbling than I expected, surprisingly less pain, one maidenhead sealed and delivered, one moment I'd love to forget.
Yet the world did not stop there, as I have often hoped that it would. Of course, we broke up. You cannot really look someone in the eye whom you do not love after you've debased yourself in front of them. Besides, I was still a schoolgirl. He went directly into Voldemort's service. I went directly into Ted's arms and directly out of that life. The little peace was dissolved. End of story. Only we had to go on living.
As one is almost required to in these situations, I hate him with every fiber of my being. How could I not? I gave him willingly what was, at least to him, the very essence of my being. Then we betrayed each other absolutely. The hands I held torture people. The lips I kissed spit curses. I used to think about it often. Too often. It was like a bruise that I cannot keep from touching. I have cursed him and cried and vomited and crawled like an animal and moved on and never really left that time. And I did it all willingly. I danced happily to the slaughter.
His hair was long, black, fine, and exquisite to touch. It was always in a ponytail that started just at the base of his neck. I was young, too young, but you know how hindsight is. Rodolphus and Bella had already started an intense, slow burn courtship. It just seemed like the right thing. You know how it starts, for it always starts the same. Innocent girl desperate to fit in, older boy looking for someone to look up to him. They talk. They flirt. He ignores her, she dotes more. All very much on the level, all evenhanded, all typical.
I think I liked him because he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes. At least, I think that was my reason to myself at the time. Even Muggle tobacco was too tainted for him; he found the one wizard grower in the world. At the time, I thought it made him sophisticated rather than pretentious and elitist.
He looked at me one day, taking a long drag from one of those self-same cigarettes. He looked at me, appraised me, gave me that long, hard gaze that is the ultimate test. I don't really know what he saw. I was a rather confused 6th year, torn between family and future, who hadn't quite realized that she had developed quickly and favorably. He finished his painfully slow, yet almost offhand glance and looked me right in the face.
"So I suppose you want to go out?" he said, as one would address an uncooperative child. So much for my first sweet taste of young love. It didn't matter to me then. I still thought he was the be all and end all of the wizarding world.
Dating didn't make things that much different. Furtive groping in the astronomy tower, a constant escort to class, living as a perpetual performance piece for all of Slytherin, a much envied invitation to the Graduation Dance. It was every cliché imaginable, but I though it was something rare and beautiful. I was an exceedingly young, exceedingly stupid girl.
It was late summer, just before I got my letter for seventh year. I was staying at Lestrange Manor. Strange as it sounds, I wanted to be home. It was one of the rare moments that my mother and I actually got along. Outside, the sky was spending itself on the land. We were lying on his bed, in his room all immaculate in dark brocade and mahogany paneling. It was the kind of room that seems almost too good to be in, where every trace of someone living there is carefully removed each day by the house elf.
How can I describe what happened? I don't suppose I really need to. You know this story. A lot more fumbling than I expected, surprisingly less pain, one maidenhead sealed and delivered, one moment I'd love to forget.
Yet the world did not stop there, as I have often hoped that it would. Of course, we broke up. You cannot really look someone in the eye whom you do not love after you've debased yourself in front of them. Besides, I was still a schoolgirl. He went directly into Voldemort's service. I went directly into Ted's arms and directly out of that life. The little peace was dissolved. End of story. Only we had to go on living.
As one is almost required to in these situations, I hate him with every fiber of my being. How could I not? I gave him willingly what was, at least to him, the very essence of my being. Then we betrayed each other absolutely. The hands I held torture people. The lips I kissed spit curses. I used to think about it often. Too often. It was like a bruise that I cannot keep from touching. I have cursed him and cried and vomited and crawled like an animal and moved on and never really left that time. And I did it all willingly. I danced happily to the slaughter.